


The Promise of Light

by the_wordbutler



Series: Motion Practice [35]
Category: Cable and Deadpool, Marvel (Comics), Spider-Man (Comicverse), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Christmas, F/F, Legal Drama, Multi, Tony Stark Has A Heart, motion practice universe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-25
Updated: 2015-12-25
Packaged: 2018-05-09 03:40:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,735
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5524079
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_wordbutler/pseuds/the_wordbutler
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Natasha knows three things about Christmas in Suffolk County:  the weather’s bitterly cold, it almost always snows, and she never quite feels at home.</p><p>This Christmas should be the same as every other.</p><p>It’s not.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Promise of Light

**Author's Note:**

> Thing I have discovered: In Russia, Christmas is celebrated on January 7. Surprise! Also, I don’t know much about the recent history of Russia (and the Soviet Union, as it probably would have been called during Natasha’s youth), so if there are some inaccuracies because of my lack of history knowledge, well. Artistic license is alive and well!
> 
> Trigger warning for brief references to domestic violence.
> 
> Thank you as always to my beta-readers, Jen and saranoh, who are the gifts that just keep on giving. Happy holidays to them and to all of you!

“You warned your brother about the name, right?” Pepper actually pauses in her thorough review of her brother’s Facebook photos to shoot Natasha a disapproving glance. Natasha shrugs. “I know you’re the baby sister, but if you don’t tell him . . . ”

Pepper rolls her eyes. “Despite our shared experience, not all children named Anthony grow up into self-centered playboys.”

“Really?”

“Really.” When Natasha raises an eyebrow, Pepper sighs. “I warned Alex three different times,” she finally admits. “He refused to listen to reason.”

“Pretty typical for a Potts,” Natasha replies, and her girlfriend nudges their knees together as she flips to a new photograph on the iPad.

Anthony Albert Potts is a full month old this week, and if his father’s Facebook is to be believed, literally holds the whole extended Potts family in the palm of his tiny hand. In every picture, he’s swaddled up in blue blankets while a random relative grins triumphantly. Basking in the proof that the youngest of Pepper’s brothers _finally_ produced a child—not, of course, that Natasha says this aloud.

Instead, she sips her wine as she glances at the next photograph. “His hair’s red,” she remarks.

Pepper snorts. “His mother is mortified. She thought she’d avoid the strawberry-blonde curse.”

“As long as the freckles follow, he’ll fit right in,” Natasha comments, threading her fingers through the ends of Pepper’s hair.

Pepper smiles, her expression soft and a little distant as she mercifully closes out the window. They had spent most of Black Friday holed up in Natasha’s little apartment, sleeping late only to graze on leftovers from the enormous Stark-Banner spread the day before. Now, with one of Pepper’s thousand Pandora stations playing quietly in the background and Liho chasing mice in her dreams, Natasha feels—

Settled? Warm? The words slip through her fingers like the strands of Pepper’s hair. She strokes the back of her neck, instead, and Pepper rolls her lips together. For a second, she tips toward Natasha, close enough to rest her head on her shoulder, but she stops herself at the last moment and reaches for her drink instead.

She picks at the stem of the glass, and Natasha frowns. “What?”

Pepper shakes her head. “Nothing,” she replies quickly. Defensively, Natasha amends, and cocks her head to the side. Pepper maintains the lie for another three seconds before she sighs. “Alex asked me to be Anthony’s godmother.”

“And you’re upset because . . . ”

“Because they scheduled his dedication for the Sunday after Christmas.” She glances up from her glass, and Natasha works to keep her expression completely neutral. “I hate dropping this on you, but the best way to be there is—”

“To spend Christmas in Pennsylvania,” Natasha finishes.

Pepper nods hesitantly, her fingers still toying idly with her wine glass. “My other brother—you know, the travel agent—managed to grab me one of the last affordable flights into Philadelphia. I don’t think there are any seats left. But I talked to Tony—”

Natasha huffs. “Now there’s a dangerous sentence.”

Something in Pepper’s expression sharpens, and Natasha ignores the guilt curling in her belly to reach for her own glass. “Tony offered to pull a few strings, either with the airline or with the private charter company he pretends he’s too down-to-earth for.” She pauses, and a tiny flush of pink crawls across her cheeks. “If you wanted to bite the bullet and come with me. For Christmas.”

Her sudden and complete uncertainty catches Natasha off guard, and for a moment, they simply stare at one another, Natasha’s lips slightly parted as the Pepper’s phone plays an advertisement for laser hair removal. The urge to scoff and play the invitation off as a joke wars against her sudden desire to cup the other woman’s cheek and kiss her deeply, and all while her heart climbs into her throat.

She sets her glass on the coffee table and presses her palms to her thighs. For the first time in what feels like years, she’s speechless.

She apparently hesitates too long, because Pepper reaches out to touch her knee. “I know we drew our line in the sand with the whole ‘meeting the family’ thing years ago,” she says, “and I’m not suggesting we make this a regular thing. Actually, meeting my family once is probably enough for a whole lifetime.” Natasha snorts quietly, and Pepper’s mouth twitches. “We wouldn’t even need to stay with my brother. I thought we could get a suite at a hotel and maybe start our own Christmas tradition.”

Natasha purses her lips. “In Pennsylvania.”

“A far cry from the lap of luxury that is Suffolk County, I know.” Natasha swallows down a laugh, but when she finishes shaking her head, Pepper’s still watching her intently. She bites her lip before adding, “But only if you’re interested.”

On the nearest chair, Liho stretches and yawns audibly, and Natasha welcomes the excuse to glance away. For the last three years, she and Pepper have worked to stoke a fragile spark into a strong, steady fire, and Natasha loves her for that. Really, she loves a thousand different things about Pepper: her refusal to wake up before ten on weekends, the smell of her shampoo after she showers, the cluster of freckles on her left hip, her collection of old college t-shirts. The longer she spends with Pepper, the further she falls, and some days, she imagines a future where they wake up together every morning, not just on weekends and holidays.

But at the same time, Natasha still remembers her childhood Christmases, trudging through the early January snow to hours-long church services, her belly full and her eyelids heavy. Worse, she remembers the Christmases right after her family immigrated to America, where after every midnight mass, she was dragged away from the promise of light and back into the darkness.

She waits until Liho abandons her post for food before turning back to Pepper. “I’m glad you offered,” she says, “but you know I don’t really do anything for Christmas.”

“No, I just know you tell me that.” When she wrinkles her nose, Pepper raises her eyebrows. “Am I wrong?” she asks. “Because our first year together, when I flew home for Alex’s engagement party—”

Natasha frowns. “Your brother really loves scheduling important events at Christmas.”

“It’s his December birthday bitterness. Everyone must suffer.” Natasha huffs, and Pepper lightly nudges their knees together. “Ever since we started dating,” she continues, “you’ve insisted you don’t really do anything for the holidays. But now that we spend just about every _other_ national holiday with Tony and Bruce—”

“Reluctantly,” Natasha points out.

“—it might be time to start our own tradition.” Pepper tangles their fingers together, her hand chilly but still comforting, and Natasha smiles slightly even as she glances away. “Or at least enjoy a few vacation days together.”

“Because Pennsylvania is the south of France?” Natasha challenges.

“I already put _that_ vacation on Tony’s calendar for next May, and he’s promised no monumental breakdowns.” Natasha actually chuckles, the coil of uncertainty in her belly loosening slightly, and Pepper squeezes her hand. “Will you at least think about it?” 

Natasha shakes her head. “Not this year.” The tiny spark of hope that started with that subtle pink blush fades away, and she sighs. “I’m sorry, Pepper, but I—”

“I know,” Pepper interrupts. She leans her head on Natasha’s shoulder, but Natasha knows instantly that it’s just a distraction from the clear hurt in her voice. 

 

==

 

“I need socks,” Dot Barnes says, her lips stained with hot chocolate. “And a tie.”

“But a nice tie,” Amy Jimenez adds, glancing over at Natasha. “Uncle Steve collects ties, but most of them are like—” She pauses, her brow crinkling. “You know the curtains in Bruce’s office? The brown ones with the weird wriggly things?”

She twists her napkin around in her hands, approximating the “wriggly things,” and Natasha raises an eyebrow. “Paisley?” she suggests.

Amy beams. “Yeah, those! Uncle Steve has a lot of paisley ties, and Uncle Bucky said, ‘No more.’”

She casts a conspiratorial glance across the tiny table, and Dot holds herself together for a full three seconds before dissolving into giggles. Amy joins her immediately, both of them squirming in delight at some inside joke.

An older woman waiting in the coffee line whips her head (and enormous Nordstrom’s bag) around to scowl at them. “Children,” she says sharply, “should not be so loud in public.”

Natasha shrugs. “I’m just their temporary chaperone,” she replies lightly, and the woman huffs as she turns away.

The local mall at Christmastime reminds Natasha of Dante’s _Inferno_ , mostly because it feels like one of the seven circles of hell. Shoppers crowd the usually airy corridors connecting the different stores, parents corral their children into the various Santa-related attractions set up in the atrium, and kiosk employees accost unsuspecting onlookers with “miraculous” crystal-infused body lotion. Conversations combine into a cacophony, the fountain behind the stand-alone coffee bar crashes and sputters, and every five minutes, someone accidentally jostles Natasha’s chair from behind. 

She grits her teeth at the latest culprit, a dark-haired woman with a double stroller. “Sorry,” the woman quickly apologizes.

Amy, still reviewing her hand-written shopping list, comments, “Be careful. My dad says she kills people with her eyes when she’s mad.”

The woman blinks, flushes, and beats a hasty retreat.

Natasha smiles and slides Amy the rest of her cookie. “For good behavior,” she says, and Amy grins.

While the girls finish their strangely adult routine of sipping cocoa and discussing potential Christmas gifts, Natasha digs out her cell phone. In the last week, she’s kept her distance from Pepper and their other friends, but waking up alone on a weekend feels foreign and, worse, a little lonely. She thumbs to the text message screen, where she’s left her latest conversation with Bruce open:

 **Bruce:** _For the last time, are you sure you want to help the kids Christmas shop? Because I can’t offer hazard pay._

 **Me:** _I already cleared my busy schedule of watching Hulu in my pajamas._

 **Bruce:** _And to think you strike fear into the hearts of defendants everywhere._

She snorts quietly and exits to the master list of conversations, and she only hesitates for a few seconds before tapping Pepper’s name. Except that particular message stream is three days old:

 **Pepper:** _Maria’s demanding “fried garbage” for lunch, so we’re heading out for wings. You want to join? It’s just us and Peggy._

 **Me:** _I’m finishing a motion. Maybe tomorrow?_

 **Pepper:** _I’ll eat an extra fried pickle in your honor._

But instead of working on a motion—or, really, on anything—Natasha’d spent her lunch hour picking at a wilted cafeteria salad and glaring at her office wall.

She sighs and tosses her phone back in her bag. “Ready?” she asks, and the girls seriously reconsider their lists before nodding in unison.

They crowd close to her in the press of bodies, a little too independent to hold her hand but still refusing to leave her side. Slowly but surely, they inch their way into a half-dozen different stores, and she bites back just as many grins watching them carefully calculate just how far their spending money will stretch. In one shop, Dot buys robot-themed socks for her Uncle Tony but picks out the more conservative, hot-dog covered socks for Bucky; in another, Amy painstakingly selects two different books on astronomy for Bruce and Miles. Together, the girls pore over ties and scarves, selecting a very fluffy blue scarf for Teddy and an obnoxious American flag tie for Steve.

Natasha chokes on her laugh. “That’s perfect,” she announces, and Dot grins in triumph. “You might have to get him some American flag socks to match, though.”

Amy’s eyes widen. “They _make_ those?” she asks. Her voice trembles with unadulterated hope.

And three stops later, she spends her last few dollars on red, white, and blue socks for her beloved Uncle Steve.

Shopping finally finished, Dot buys a soft pretzel with her last handful of change, and she breaks it into three big pieces as they crowd onto a bench together. When she hands a chunk to Natasha, she shakes her head. “I don’t—”

“We share,” Dot informs her. Her stern expression leaves no room for argument. “Dad’s rules.”

“And Daddy Bruce’s rules,” Amy emphasizes. “You do _not_ want to break Daddy Bruce’s rules. He’ll make you write an _I’m sorry_ letter.”

Dot nods solemnly. “Amy writes a lot of sorry letters when she talks back.”

“Really?” When Natasha looks over at Amy, the girl huffs and tosses her braid over her shoulder. “I thought you were Bruce and Tony’s sweet daughter.”

“I’m the only daughter,” Amy grumbles, and snatches her bit of pretzel from Dot.

Natasha hides her smile, and for a few minutes, they sit without talking, the girls swinging their legs as they suck salt from their fingertips. Even with the mall still thrumming around them, the bench feels quiet and private, and Natasha’s attention slowly wanders. She loses herself to studying passing strangers—a man corralling his daughters, a clump of teenagers bent over a cell phone, an older couple bickering over their holiday plans—and despite all the Christmas chaos, a sense of peace settles in the pit of her stomach.

At least, until she glances back over at the pretzel stand, where two women her age are waiting in line. One nudges the other, and as their eyes meet, she tangles their fingers together. When they smile at each other, something in Natasha’s chest constricts, and she turns back to her pretzel.

She thinks of her silent cell phone and her empty bed. Worse, she thinks of her apartment, devoid of Christmas decorations but overlooking the bright holiday lights in the back courtyard. She’d watched them for an hour last night, their twinkle warm and comforting against the sleet and cold.

She’d snapped a picture of them, too, same as the year before. She just hasn’t sent it to anyone, yet.

“You’re from far away, right?” 

Natasha jerks out of her own thoughts to find both girls staring at her, wide eyed. She blinks. “What?”

Dot sighs. “Uncle Bruce said you grew up in another place,” she explains, her tone long-suffering. “A far-away one. Right?”

“Russia,” Natasha answers, nodding. “We lived there until I was seven or eight. Why?”

“Because of traditions.” When she frowns in confusion, Dot wrinkles her nose. For the first time, Natasha wonders exactly how much of the conversation had passed her by. “We’re learning about traditions in school, and my teacher said that people who grew up in far-away places have different holidays with different traditions. Like putting candy in shoes.”

“Or hiding brooms,” Amy chimes in. “Our Sunday school teacher, Mister Riley, said his grandma used to hide all the brooms to keep Christmas Eve witches away.”

Natasha raises her eyebrows. “You go to Sunday school now?” she asks.

Dot grins. “With me and my dads!” she answers, and Amy nods enthusiastically. “She started when school started. And every Sunday, when we pick her up, Uncle Tony says he wanted all his kids to be ‘goodless heavens.’” 

She pauses to push hair out of her face, and Natasha bites back a snort. “Did Tony say ‘godless heathens,’ instead?”

“Yeah, that one!” Amy replies, beaming. “But Uncle Bucky tells him it’s okay that I’m not one of those anymore, because of Miles and Teddy.” She stops for a moment, her brow crumpling. “Mister Riley won’t tell us what it means.”

“‘Goodless’ means they don’t have any good in them,” Dot responds sagely. “I think it’s because they’re boys.” This time, Natasha’s laugh nearly chokes her, and she swallows hard around it. Dot studies her carefully for a moment before she presses, “Are there special traditions in Russia? Like with brooms and shoe candy?”

Somehow, Natasha clings to the edges of her smile, but she feels the way it dims as she shrugs. “We celebrate Christmas on a different day in Russia,” she explains after a few seconds. “I don’t remember much about it, just eating a big dinner and going to long church services. Not exactly like Christmas here.”

“Did you still celebrate the different Christmas when you moved to America?” Amy asks.

Natasha shakes her head. “Almost everything changed when we moved here. Christmas included.” Amy frowns, obviously read to fire off a half-dozen more questions, but Natasha forces a grin. “We’d better go meet your dad in the food court. Otherwise, he might strand us here. Forever.”

Panic spreads across the girls’ expressions, and within seconds, they’re gripping Natasha’s arms and physically dragging her off the bench. She resists for a moment, letting them plead and whine before play-staggering to her feet. They weave through the crowds that way, a girl (and a collection of shopping bags) clinging to each wrist, and Natasha tries to remember if she ever felt this kind of excitement about the season.

Child-like wonder, she thinks, grows out of actual childhoods. The kind not plagued by fear and anger—or the deafening silence that always follows.

They find Bruce and the boys (Teddy, Miles, and Ganke) at a table just outside the Chinese food stall, and immediately, Amy leaps into a complicated series of lunchtime negotiations. Her brothers roll their eyes and keep demolishing their pizza, and Natasha snags a slice before claiming the table next to them.

“You know,” Teddy remarks, “we maybe didn’t want to share.”

“Uh, I’m okay with her eating all of my pizza.” Ganke squeaks when Miles—employing all the subtlety of a freight train—elbows him in the side. “Dude, what? When a beautiful girl asks for pizza—”

“Wow,” Teddy mutters.

“—you give her pizza.” He flashes a huge grin in Natasha’s direction. “I can buy you a soda, too, if you need one.”

“Can you grab me a cup of ice while you’re up?” Miles asks.

Ganke frowns. “Why?”

“To dump in your lap.” He sputters, face suddenly bright red, while Miles glances over at Natasha. “I’m _really_ sorry, Natasha. He’s not housebroken yet.”

Teddy nods solemnly. “Despite our best efforts.”

Natasha shrugs. “Trust me, boys, I’ve seen worse,” she promises, patting Ganke’s shoulder lightly.

Ganke, his face now hidden part of the way in his sweatshirt, slouches down in his chair and mumbles something about his imminent demise.

Bruce and the girls return a few minutes later, their tray laden with tacos, hot dogs, and milkshakes. He waits until they’re eating to drop into the chair across from Natasha, and she raises an eyebrow. “If you’re worn out after ten minutes with them,” she says, “imagine how I feel.”

“Like you avoided an hour and a half of teenaged angst?” She snorts, but he just shrugs. “Don’t believe me? Ask Miles about Briana’s feud with Kaylee. His angry ranting might be the renewable energy source this country desperately needs.”

“Maybe I want the oceans to rise enough that I can score some beachfront property.”

The corner of his mouth kicks up into a smile. “And here I thought you’d sworn off bikinis.”

She rolls her eyes the second his laugh lines crinkle, glancing back out across the food court as he chuckles and unwraps his own taco. All around them, strangers jockey for chairs and bump into one another, their bags stuffed to bursting. Couples and families share food, teenagers swap cell phones while giggling, and familiar Christmas songs fill the occasional beats of silence. But instead of feeling warm and full, like a part of some holiday hive mind, a shiver runs up Natasha’s spine.

She abandons the last bites of her pizza and tucks her hands into her pockets. Across the table, Bruce swallows audibly. “Listen, about Christmas—”

“Pepper told you?” When he purses his lips, Natasha sighs. “No, not Pepper. Tony. Which means that Pepper told _him_.”

“I think that, instead of answering, I’m going to assert my marital privilege on this one.” She wrinkles her nose, and he smiles wryly. “Although, as a note, Tony does have a vested interest in Pepper’s continued happiness.”

She crosses her arms. “And in meddling.”

“That one goes without saying.” She snorts and shakes her head, but even when she glances down at the tabletop, she still feels his gaze sweeping across her face. “I don’t know about the details of your relationship,” he continues, “and unlike my husband, I don’t believe in prying. But if you’re interested, you’re more than welcome to spend the holiday with the five of us.”

She blinks, suddenly unable to stamp down her surprise. Bruce smiles, his expression sheepish and she raises an eyebrow. “Since I know I heard you right—”

“I know our life has been a little, well, complicated recently,” he admits with a shrug, “and I recognize you might not be interested in spending a day with sugar-crazed children and a niece who loves telling everyone the Christmas story.”

“Because baby Jesus saves us from the Temptations and delivers us from evil,” Dot announces from the next table.

All three boys snicker, leading to Dot’s immediate protests, and Bruce raises his hands helplessly. “Like I said: Christmas at the Stark-and-Banner house. Never a dull moment.” He catches and holds her gaze. “And always prepared to welcome one more.”

All at once, the bickering at the kids’ table reaches a fever pitch that requires adult intervention, and Bruce rolls his eyes as he switches into parent mode. Natasha mostly ignores it, grateful for the opportunity to collect her thoughts—and to quickly glance at her phone. Her only new messages are promotional e-mails, and she swipes past the lock screen to open up her last conversation with Pepper.

 _Dinner tonight?_ she types. _I’ll cook if you bring the wine._

Almost instantly, a reply bubble pops up. _That sounds like bribery._

Natasha huffs out a laugh. _You’ve never complained before._

She considers another line of text—not necessarily to apologize as much to further extend the olive branch—but before she figures out what to say, a sulking Amy stomps over and throws herself into the nearest empty chair. Natasha glances up at Bruce, eyebrows raised, but he just shakes his head. _Complicated life,_ he mouths, and she almost smiles.

“I’m okay, by the way,” she says later, as they walk out to the parking lot. Bruce stops steering Amy by the top of her head to blink at her, and she shrugs. “I know Christmas means a lot to most people, but to me, it’s not really anything. Just a blank space. I don’t mind it staying that way.”

He rolls his lips together, his expression soft and obviously worried. “You’re sure?”

“Absolutely,” she replies, bumping their arms together. “But thanks anyway.”

 

==

 

On Monday, Natasha returns from the break room to discover Clint sitting in her chair and creating a paperclip chain as long as her arm. She sips her coffee, waiting until he digs back into the box to ask, “Did you need something?”

Graceful as always, he yelps in surprise and dumps the box into his lap.

“You’re cleaning that up,” she informs him, gesturing vaguely to his groin. “And before you ask, no, Phil is not invited to help.”

Clint frowns nearly to the point of pouting. “But Nat—”

She shoots him a sharp glance. “You are not defiling my office, Barton,” she warns, and he finally grins.

She snags a few police reports off the corner of her desk and settles into one of her guest chairs to read them, leaving Clint to pick up his mess. Twice, she tells him that he missed one without actually glancing up. The second time, he swears under his breath, and she smiles.

When he finally finishes, he flops into the chair next to her, his legs stretched out and whole body slouching. “So,” he says, “I hear you’re alone for Christmas.”

Natasha’s jaw twitches slightly. “Tony?”

Clint shrugs. “Maybe.” She huffs and flips to the next page in her report. He shifts uncomfortably. “Look, I know all about lonely orphan Christmases. Wrote the book on them. So, with that in mind: Nebraska.”

She rolls her eyes. “No.”

“C’mon,” he half-whines, and by the time she flicks her gaze in his direction, he’s perched on the edge of his seat. “You met the whole Coulson clan last year at our wedding. At least three of the nieces wanna be you when they grow up. And the best part is, nobody ever notices an extra body. You’d blend right in.”

“Clint?”

His face brightens. “Yeah?”

“It’s _Nebraska._ ”

He cringes. “Not a selling point, I know, but you could maybe do worse.” When she cocks her head to one side, he shrugs. “Hey, I said ‘maybe.’”

“Further proof you need a decent dictionary.” He snorts before opening his mouth to argue, but Natasha interrupts him by raising a hand. “I’ll be fine, Clint. I don’t need Nebraska to comfort me.”

He nods slightly, but his sharp eyes sweep over her face, studying her. “You sure?” he finally asks.

“Positive.”

 _I hate your best friend,_ she types in an e-mail later that afternoon, her desk covered with case reporters and notes on a half-finished motion. _He’s like a yenta, but for people disinterested in holidays._

 _If it keeps guilting you into cooking for me . . ._ Pepper replies a few minutes later, and Natasha huffs a laugh.

 

==

 

“You have an infant,” Natasha points out.

“So?” She scowls, but Maria just rolls her eyes as she reaches for a slice of the cafeteria’s supposedly pumpkin pie. “Natasha, he’s five months old. For him, Christmas is just another day. One with really loud aunts and an _abuela_ who lets him eat her jewelry, but nothing special.”

Natasha snags an orange from a bowl before leveling Maria a suspicious glance. “And you want me to be part of that ‘excitement?’”

“I want you to be part of something.” Natasha snorts, shaking her head. Maria reaches out to touch her elbow. “I know Clint asked you to come with him and Phil,” she continues, “but I _also_ know how it feels to be mostly estranged from your family at the holidays. If I can help lighten that load, even a little, then . . . ”

She trails off with a shrug, and Natasha sighs. “I’m really starting to resent the gossip being passed around by Phil’s girl group,” she grumbles.

Maria grins. “You and Jasper both,” she says, and hands Natasha a glass.

 

==

 

“And sure, my one uncle will drink until he throws up, but you’re Russian, right? That’s probably standard operating procedure for you guys.” Natasha glances up from her hearing notes, but Darcy Lewis just shrugs. “What?” she asks. “You’re from a culture of heavy drinking. God knows I can never keep up with you.”

Natasha smirks. “And you want to blame that on your ancestry?”

“Well, it definitely isn’t because you outweigh me,” Darcy retorts, gesturing primarily to her chest. Natasha rolls her eyes, and the other woman grins. For once, the hallway outside Judge English’s courtroom is mostly deserted, and Natasha appreciates the respite. 

Or at least, she appreciates it until Darcy scoots closer. “Truth is,” she says, “I’ve never been alone at the holidays. My family’d probably disown me, and now that they’ve sucked Peter into their web of crazy . . . ” She shakes her head. “But guessing from my drunk uncle’s rants about his ex-wife, I think Christmas is probably the worst time to be totally alone. Or, you know, alone with a bottle of vodka.”

Natasha sighs. “Clint, Phil, Maria, or Tony?” she asks.

“In a weird four-person _fuck, marry, kill_ deathmatch? Probably—” Natasha narrows her eyes, and Darcy crinkles her nose. “Fine, Clint,” she admits. “But only because I saw him at a scheduling hearing yesterday and asked about his holiday plans.”

“Because my plans are his business?” Natasha retorts.

“No, more because he really wants you to come to Nebraska.” Natasha groans quietly, threading fingers through her hair, but Darcy shrugs again. “I think it’s pretty nice he worries about you. Like a weird older brother with a _really_ nice ass.”

Natasha snorts. “I really thought passing the bar exam might cure you of that obsession.”

“Never,” Darcy says seriously, and she even crosses her heart for emphasis. She holds off her grin until Natasha finally cracks a smile. “But honestly, if Nebraska’s too far—or, you know, too _Nebraska_ —you’re always welcome to come to the Lewis Family Holiday Disaster. Patent pending, of course.”

“Well, with an offer like _that_ . . . ” Natasha replies, and Darcy laughs and elbows her.

 

==

 

“I realize that I maybe ruined our chances at a deep and abiding friendship, what with my creepy crush and promises to bear your red-headed babies, but since I’m now the proud parent of a red-headed stepchild—like, literally, her hair’s almost as red as yours—I figure we can start to mend that break.”

Wade Wilson punctuates his monologue by leaning against one of Natasha’s file cabinets—and then, by nearly losing his balance when the cabinet teeters slightly. He swears as he rights himself, and Natasha bites back a smile. “You know we’re just talking about a plea agreement today, right?”

“Yeah, but I figured maybe we’d start with a little foreplay.” She blinks, and his hands shoot up into the air. “Intellectual foreplay!” he corrects. “A friendly back-and-forth, focusing on how we respect each other as professionals as people and enough to, you know, demolish a honey-baked ham together ten days from now.”

Natasha frowns. “What does ham—” she starts to ask, but Wade just nods toward her wall calendar. She locates today’s date and immediately shakes her head. “No.”

“Wait, hear me out.”

“No, Wade,” she fires back. “Absolutely not.”

He scowls. “But Darcy said—”

She nearly cringes. “Darcy, too?” she demands, and she rubs her forehead when he nods. He lingers near her desk, fidgeting like a nervous child, until she recovers enough to exhale. “I appreciate the offer,” she says, her teeth nearly grinding together, “but I’m not interested.”

Wade’s shoulders slump. “Even in the face of ham?”

“Yes,” Natasha assures him, and reaches for her case file.

 

==

 

“You know,” Nathan Summers remarks at the CLE check-in table, “Wade mentioned last week that—”

Natasha snaps her head up to glare at him.

He smiles. “Just what I suspected,” he replies, and hands over her name tag.

 

==

 

On the Tuesday before Christmas, Natasha glances up from a case file to find Tony Stark hovering in her office doorway. Their eyes meet, and she watches as he leans his shoulder against the doorjamb while sipping his coffee.

Sighing, she flips the folder shut. “If this is even remotely related to Christmas or Pepper—”

“Frankly, the fact that you assume I’m here to needle you into a big Potts family Christmas instead of, I don’t know, return a pie plate is hurtful.” He pauses to shake his head. “And here, I thought our relationship had finally progressed past the point of suspicion and doubt.”

“But not past noticing your suspicious lack of pie plate.” He lifts his mug in a mocking toast, and she rolls her eyes. “If you’re not here about Pepper—”

“Yeah, I never actually said that.” Her jaw snaps shut, and when she narrows her eyes, Tony raises his hands in defense. “Look, I don’t know if you’ve noticed this, but I can count my true friends—husband included—on one hand, which means I’m duty-bound to stick up for them. Or, at the very least, to tell their significant others when they’ve screwed up.” Something in Natasha’s stomach twists at that, but he just shrugs. “And since Bucky and Carol Danvers are actually pretty ideal partners—”

“To one another?” she asks.

He snorts. “As much as I’d like to be a fly on _that_ wall, no. And you know that.” She sighs and crosses her arms, but he pins her in place with a look. “Pepper doesn’t love a lot of people,” he presses, “but she loves you. Maybe even more than she loves me, which is probably appropriate but still kind of stings a little. For her to invite you out to a crazy Potts party says something. You shouldn’t look that gift horse in the mouth.”

She raises her eyebrows. “And this advice comes from— Where? Your long history of successful relationships?”

“Given that Pepper is one of my two longest relationships to date, yes.”

Natasha frowns at him, and when he pauses long enough to sip his coffee, she glances down at her desktop. Unlike most of her coworkers, she keeps her workplace clean and organized, free of distractions like action figures or wilting bamboo plants. Her one personal item—the “sign of her humanity,” according to Tony—is a photograph of her and Pepper from Bruce and Tony’s wedding reception. In it, they stand shoulder-to-shoulder, laughing at Bucky and a barely visible Dot.

Natasha no longer remembers why they’d laughed, but she remembers that day. And not because of the wedding, but instead because of how she’d felt afterward, like a member of a great, sprawling family that always saved room for her.

Their great big group of misfits and orphans, as Fury sometimes mutters. A family of do-gooders who always do more good together than apart.

She shakes her head. “Pepper and I are fine,” she says curtly.

“Are you?” As neutral as he somehow keeps his voice, his body tips forward, almost teetering toward the answer. Natasha tightens her grip on her forearms, and he shrugs again. “If you actually believe you’re fine, well, there’s definitely a big bridge in Brooklyn for sale. Low price, nice views—”

She snorts. “Steve’d never forgive you.”

“Steve only likes it for its ‘artistic integrity,’” he retorts, and she almost smiles at the finger quotes. Tony grins in response, as incorrigible as ever—or at least, until he walks all the way into her office and rests his arms on the back of one of her guest chairs. “She wants you to be happy,” he says, and Natasha’s stomach twists again. “And not in some superficial way, either. She wants the deep, meaningful, kind of disgusting happiness for you. And since you clearly don’t want to spend Christmas with anybody who is _not_ Pepper Potts, I think you need to cut your losses and—”

She resists her urge to groan. “For the last time,” she stresses, “I don’t want to spend Christmas with anyone, Pepper included.”

“See, I’m not sure I believe that.” She rolls her eyes, but even when she glances away, she feels Tony staring her down. “You bribe your way back into her good graces with one dinner, I maybe buy your story. But eight or nine dinners? Never mind all the meaningful glances in the hallway you assume we don’t notice.” Her shoulders tense without her permission, but only because she’s caught _herself_ watching Pepper’s back in the hallway—or worse, in bed at night. Tony shakes his head. “Look, here’s the thing: if this didn’t matter to you, you wouldn’t feel things about it. But since you obviously do, you need to take the hint.”

Natasha grits her teeth. “You don’t—”

“Understand?” She scowls, but Tony just raises his eyebrows expectantly. “That’s the accusation, right? The guy with the dead mom and emotionally abusive alcoholic asshole of a father knows nothing about how the most wonderful time of the year can sometimes feel like a veil of darkness.” She purses her lips, but for some reason, she can’t quite break Tony’s gaze. “But trust me on this: I understand. I get it. And I still fight against that darkness every December. I’m just lucky enough to live in a house that’s brimming with light.” He pauses to glance down at his coffee mug. “And maybe it cuts against our better instincts, but either way, people like us— We shouldn’t run from that.”

She studies him for a moment—the soft slope of his shoulders, the creases at the corners of his mouth, the way his breath wavers when he sighs—and wonders, at least in those few seconds, how far his darkness drags him down. She knows bits and pieces of his story, details cobbled together from conversations with Pepper and Bruce, but she’s never stopped actually ask.

After all, investigating someone else’s scars might mean revealing her own.

She uncrosses her arms to brush hair from her face. “I appreciate the sentiment,” she finally says, “but it’s really not that simple.”

“Probably not,” he admits, “but you might as well start somewhere.”

She sighs at that, almost ready to argue with him, but he cuts her off by reaching into his suit jacket. Before she really processes what he’s doing, he wanders over and places a business-sized envelope on the edge of her desk. “Just in case,” he says.

Her heart drops into her stomach as he slides it toward her. “Tony—”

“Consider it an early Christmas gift,” he interrupts, the corner of his mouth quirking up into a grin. “From one broken mess of a human being to the other.”

Natasha rolls her eyes. “You’re not that broken,” she reminds him.

Tony shrugs. “Funnily enough, neither are you.”

 

==

 

On December 23, Natasha drives Pepper to the airport.

She lingers on the sidewalk as Pepper drags her luggage out of the trunk, her muttered curses rising as steam in the frigid December morning. Natasha keeps her hands in her pockets, useless and struggling for the right words. The same struggle of the last three nights, she thinks bitterly, and of the three weeks before that.

She jerks out of her thoughts when Pepper slams the trunk, and somehow, she even smiles. “Don’t come back a Republican,” she jokes, opening her arms.

Pepper grins. “You say that as though I’m _not_ in favor of sound fiscal policy,” she teases, and Natasha rolls her eyes as Pepper slides into her personal space.

When they hug, Pepper smells like coffee and vanilla, reminding Natasha of warm sheets and their lazy weekend mornings in bed. She holds on for too long, her face against Pepper’s neck, and hopes that she only shivers from the cold.

Pepper kisses her gently before pulling away. “I’ll call you tomorrow,” she promises. “Just to check in.”

“And to make sure I don’t light Tony on fire?”

Pepper shrugs. “Maybe,” she replies, and Natasha laughs when she winks.

But when she finally leaves the departure lane, weaving in and out of the heavy holiday traffic, she loops around the airport and parks in the cell phone waiting area. She sits there for a long time, Tony’s envelope peeking out of her work bag, and watches the gray December sky to a jet engine soundtrack.

At work, she steals a bag of chocolate-covered pretzels from the mound of holiday treats in the break room and locks herself in her office. She focuses on the normal rhythm of her day—replying to e-mails, reviewing case files, preparing notes for upcoming hearings—and ignores the tightness that keeps creeping into her chest.

Well, mostly.

Twice, she digs into her pile of police reports, determined to file and sort them, but each time, she stops halfway into reading. In one report, a preteen had called dispatch after her father, drunk on eggnog, started beating her mother. In another, a mother showed up at the already overcrowded domestic violence shelter with her two little girls and reported that her husband, in one of his more violent episodes, had thrown all their Christmas decorations and gifts in the front yard. 

In the end, both women had declined to press charges. 

Natasha drops the reports into the bottom of a drawer and slams it shut. When she digs her fingers through her hair, her eyes sting.

She leaves work a half-hour early, after that.

Driving home through the last-minute Christmas traffic feels a little like maneuvering through a warzone, and she spends most of her commute trying not to lay on her horn. By the time she reaches her apartment building, she feels strung-out and on-edge, ready for a fight with just about anyone. She skips the elevator to charge up the stairs, determined to lock herself in her apartment, draw a bath, and chase away the regret that keeps pooling in her gut.

Instead, she nearly collides with her next-door neighbor.

The woman gasps, dropping her bags and her cane in surprise, and Natasha reaches out to grab her before she teeters and falls. As far as Natasha remembers from their yearly building meet-and-greet, the woman’s a widow in her seventies with two middle-aged sons. _Strapping boys_ , the woman’d said once, quirking an eyebrow at Natasha.

Natasha flinches slightly at the memory, and her neighbor pats her arm. “No harm done, sweetheart,” she says, and Natasha blinks dumbly. “The bags are just gifts for my grandsons. Legos, actually. And according to my daughter-in-law, they are mostly indestructible.”

She flashes Natasha a charming smile, and Natasha forces herself to return the favor. “Can I help you inside?” she offers as she picks up the cane. “It’s the least I can do after—”

“Are you sure you’re not in a hurry?” her neighbor presses. “You seemed to be in such a rush. I don’t want to make you late for anything. Dinner with your pretty friend, maybe?”

An uninvited warmth snakes up the side of Natasha’s neck, but she shakes her head. “No plans,” she half-lies, and gathers up the shopping bags.

The inside of her neighbor’s apartment immediately reminds Natasha of a department store Christmas display, and she stares helplessly as the woman wanders through the garland-draped foyer and into the equally festive living room. “If you could put those on the dining table,” she instructs, “I can wrap them tonight. The boys will be over tomorrow.”

Natasha frowns at the stacks of gifts—battlements, really—that already wait under the ornament-laden tree. “How many grandchildren do you have?” she wonders aloud.

Her neighbor stops switching on Christmas lights to chuckle. “Only the three,” she replies, “but my sister Edie has a legion of grandbabies, and someone needs to be their favorite great-aunt.”

Natasha snorts at that, nearly smiling, and watches as the room slowly envelops them in its full Christmas splendor. The lights on the tree twinkle, the tinsel sparkles, and even the artificial garland and fake holly seem to spring to life. The uncomfortable feeling in the pit of her stomach intensifies, her heart clenching slightly, and she ducks her head away from all the decorations to bring the bags into dining area.

Where, of course, a massive pine-themed centerpiece and a dozen rolls of wrapping paper greet her.

She arranges the bags quickly, but when she turns back toward the living room, her neighbor’s looming in the doorway. “Can I get you anything?” she asks. “Tea, coffee, some cookies? My stitch-and-bitch Secret Santa gave me a _lot_ of cookies.”

Natasha almost chokes on her surprised laugh. “Stitch-and-bitch?” she repeats.

“Like a knitting circle, but with Irish coffee.” She chuckles, but as her neighbor watches her, her expression softens. “Do you have any plans for the holiday? With your pretty friend, or—”

Natasha shrugs. “Not really.”

She braces herself for an invitation—or worse, another lecture on spending the holidays with loved ones—but instead, her neighbor simply purses her lips and studies her. She shifts her weight slightly, mostly reminded of the hundred times Judge English has peered at her with the same sort of intensity. After a few seconds, though, her neighbor nods. “Christmas is hard,” she says.

Natasha frowns. “I don’t—”

“The first few years after my husband died, I couldn’t stand the holidays,” her neighbor continues with a little sigh. “All the good memories felt tarnished, and the bad ones . . . Suddenly, I could only think about the hard times, and that definitely puts a damper on this time of year.” She shakes her head. “My sons, my sister, even my friends— No one understood. And because of that, I spent Christmas alone for, oh, years.”

The woman’s voice cracks a little, and Natasha swallows thickly. For some reason, her chest feels tight, like she might cave in—or worse, explode. She gestures weakly at the living room. “That obviously changed,” she points out.

Her neighbor beams. “My first grandson,” she says. She gestures to cluster of photographs on the curio cabinet, all of which feature chubby-cheeked toddler boys. “I still hurt, but I wanted him to _not_ hurt. To enjoy his first Christmas and be with all the people who loved him. Even me.” Her smile dims slightly, but her eyes still twinkle like the Christmas lights. “Makes it a little easier to bear the season.”

“Loving him does?” Natasha asks.

Her neighbor closes the distance between them to lightly touch her arm. “Loving each other, actually,” she replies. “Now, how about those cookies?”

 

==

 

In Pennsylvania, fresh-fallen snow clings to everything: the evergreen bushes lining the drive, the flagstones leading up to the front porch, and even Natasha’s hair. She brushes the flakes away with her glove and stomps her feet on the welcome mat to keep from trailing wet all through the house.

Or, she thinks privately, to delay the inevitable and fight against the nervous itch that climbs up her spine.

She draws in a deep breath as she reaches for the doorbell, the same as she’d done when calling Bruce for a ride to the airport and checking in at the departure desk. The same way she’ll breathe a hundred times this weekend, as she meets Pepper’s family for the first time.

Natasha remembers her Christmases as a child: long church services in a cold, dark pew; a tiny apartment in a city of strangers; red-faced screams and the silence that followed; broken glass on the carpet next to the tree. They cloud her thoughts as she rings the bell and almost drown out the cheery version of “Ding Dong Merrily On High” that plays on the other side of the door. She hikes her bag up on her shoulder and fights against them, waiting.

But when the doorknob finally turns and Pepper answers, her face pink and her eyes just this side of damp, Natasha smiles. 

“Merry Christmas,” she says, and steps into the light.


End file.
